Tuesday, 8 January 2013

I recently enjoyed a spicy chickpea special at my regular favourite pasty chain (West Cornwall Pasty Company, if anyone was wondering). It was nice enough for me to want to replicate it, so this is a variation on that recipe. Not that I have their recipe, of course, but I had many mouthfuls of pasty goodness through which to analyse the flavours.

The sweet potato cooks down to make a soft-textured base, contrasting nicely with the firmer chickpeas, and the whole thing has a decent chilli kick.

Make the pastry: grate the butter (straight from the fridge) into the flour, and rub in gently with your fingers. Add cold water, a little at a time, to form a firm dough.

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Chop the sweet potato into 1cm cubes, and finely chop the onion, garlic, and pepper.

Heat 1tbsp olive oil in a large saucepan.

Fry the sweet potato, onion, pepper, and garlic until the sweet potato is soft.

Add the chickpeas and spices, and cook for a couple more minutes.

Set aside to cool, and stir through the remaining olive oil.

Divide the pastry into 12 even pieces.

Roll each ball of pastry into a circle, approx. 6in diameter. Add two dessert spoons of filling to one half of the circle (leaving plenty of space around the edge), then fold the circle in half and turn the edges together to seal. Make a hole in the top of each pastie with a sharp knife.

Bake for 25 minutes (or freeze the pasties at this stage, and bake from frozen at a later date)

Freezer Instructions
Arrange uncooked pasties on baking sheets (after step 9), and put in the coldest part of your freezer to quickly freeze them. Once they're fully frozen, you can move them to bags or boxes. To cook from frozen, they'll take about 30-35 minutes at 200°C (or you can thaw them overnight and follow the regular cooking instructions).

Hi Rachel like U I'm addicted to WC's spicy chickpea pasties. (Fortunately for my waisline I'm < 30miles away from my nearest source; York railway station, which I only visit about 4x per year.) I was very excited to try out your recipe, thanks.I had a few technical challenges. 1 I couldn't fit all the filing into the 12 pasties. On reflection WC's filling was much less formed than mine. Next time I will 'bash'/rough mash the filling after cooking & before filling the pasty cases.2 My pasties were seriously under spiced; this could be to do with the age of my spices, so next time I will double up on the spicing & use my nose to include curry spice mixes with a high cumin & coriander content.3 I used ingredients, as U probably did, by refering to WC's listed pasty content. Again next time I will be guided by my tasting memories of the 'real McCoy'. Last time I was in a WC, I discussed the pasty content with a staff member. I'm pretty sure the potato used is exclusively or at least largely, 'white' potato', but it's not listed! Are 'fresh' food producers legally bound to list all ingredients used & in order of biggest ingredient by weight/volume listed first?

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